A SEA OF RED!
That is the sight the visiting Longview High School Lobos will witness, 7:30p.m. Friday 17 Oct ‘08.
According to the Bible of Texas High School football, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Magazine, the Marshall High-Longview High rivalry is the Number One rivalry in the state.
Here are the top ten rivalries in descending order:
No. 10: Kimball vs. Carter
No. 9: Lufkin vs. Nacogdoches
No. 8: New Braunfels vs. Seguin
No. 7: Gordon vs. Strawn
No. 6: Donna vs. Weslaco
No. 5: Texarkana Texas High vs. Arkansas High
No. 4: Denison vs. Sherman
No. 3: Nederland vs. Port Neches-Groves
No. 2: Odessia Permian vs. Midland Lee
No. 1: Longview vs. Marshall
In addition, Maxim magazine in it’s April 2007 issue, ranked this rivalry as 14th on it’s list of the Fifteen Nastiest Rivalries. Number 15 was Bill Belichick vs. Eric Mangini, number 13 was Derek Jeter vs. A-Rod. The Marshall-Longview rivalry was the only high school rivalry on this list.
This rivalry has always been heated. The two cities, twenty two miles apart, just naturally don’t like each other. While Longview is a much larger city than Marshall, 76,816 to 23,872, the two schools have been in the same classification most of these years, with this year being the first time they are in the same district together since 2000, with Longview now being classified as 4A, after the recent realignment.
Not only are they playing for pride and bragging rights, which is actually the main reason, they are both undefeated in district play and makes this game even more important.
I played for the Marshall Mavericks, and remember the many games we played against the Lobos, in all sports, but the week leading to this football game, the emotions, the intensity of preparation, and the brutal force we applied to each other, are still vivid in my memory. Like others, I would rather beat the Lobos than eat steak! As with rivalries like this, the final score isn’t always indicative of the teams records or standings, those things are meaningless. This game isn’t played on paper, it is played in blood, mud, and broken bones.
That Dave Campbell recognizes the intensity of this rivalry only reaffirms what many already knew. While this makes for interesting journalistic coverage, there is more to this game than will be understood. This rivalry spills out, to include numerous fights behind and in the bleachers; police escorts for the traveling team(sometimes the fans) to and from the game, and many instances of vandalism of the opposing school in the days before the game.
Most have heard of the book “Friday Night Lights,” or the silly movie and television series. The excellent book was based on the 1988 Odessa Permian Panther’s season. In one of the chapters of the book, where Odessa travels to play the Marshall Mavericks on a hot, humid Saturday afternoon, eleven pages are written about that game. I was there, and watched one of the best football games I’ve ever seen, and the fact that the Mavericks won 13-12 only add to my opinion.
The coach of the Mavericks, Dennis Parker, had a different philosophy than the Permian coaches, he actually believed the game should be fun, not life or death. “Mojo” rolled into town on chartered buses, that were waiting for them at the Longview Regional airport, after a $20,000 chartered jet flew them in. The heat and humidity was oppressive, with aid stations set up under the bleachers for the fans overcome by it. The Maverick players were refreshed with wet towels and gatorade. The Mojo players received saline IV’s at halftime, long before this practice became common in the professional and collegiate ranks.
Coach Parker had scheduled the Permian game to prepare his team for success, and to forget about the Longview rivalry.
In Coach Parker’s words:
“The best thing we ever did was schedule Odessa Permian,” Parker said in an Oct. 23, 1988, News Messenger article. “(That) got everybody’s minds off of Longview.”
The Mavs went on to follow that with four more wins to head into their clash with the Lobos at 6-0. Then they held Longview to four first downs in the first half and raced to a 28-0 blanking at Maverick Stadium. The outcome was never in doubt.
“We ran two running plays the entire night and they couldn’t stop them,” Parker said. “They refused to adjust. They were hardheaded. They said, ‘We’re going to line up like we always have and then whip you guys.’”
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…..by early in the second half, they had a four touchdown lead. As a result, Longview’s fans, accustomed to yearly wins over their rivals, weren’t sure how to react.“The thing that sticks out in my mind in 1988 is all the Longview people were leaving in the middle of the third quarter,” Parker said. “And our kids stopped in the huddle and waved to all the people that were leaving.”
One humorous story about Coach Parker scheduling Permian, based on Coach Bum Phillip’s recommendation, is how it evolved. At Bum’s coaching clinic, Parker had expressed his dilemna to Bum, to which Bum recommended scheduling the biggest, baddest program he could find, playing on a hot, humid Saturday afternoon in East Texas. Coach Parker took his advice, and went shopping for just such an opponent, and scheduled Odessa Permian, a football power house from West Texas.
The following year, while at Bum’s coaching clinic, he asked Coach Parker if he had taken his advice, and he replied he had. Coach Phillips laughed, and said “you’ll murder them…who did you get?” Coach Parker stated he had gotten Permian for a two year, home and home agreement. Bum’s expression changed to one of being very serious, and then stated to Coach Parker, “sheeeee-it, son! Those boys don’t sweat!”
Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, but they did wilt, and with their soon to be UT and NFL wide receiver, they could only manage thirteen points.
I will be listening to the game on teamline on the internet, Friday night, wearing the best football colors in the world, red and white, and pulling for the Mavs. I will forgo steak!
One player to watch is the Maverick’s Darius Jones, ranked number 75 on ESPNU’s top 150 national recruits. I’m proud to say he is already committed to sign with the Oklahoma Sooners, where they also know good football uniform colors.
Some video flavor of the game.
*Other links*
East Texas Supersite.
Man, great post. High school football is very near and dear to me — as it is for just about any red-blooded Texas man of any age.
I played at Conroe High School in the mid-80’s, and football was king. Our big rivalry then was McCullough High School (now The Woodlands HS).
We were separated only by the San Jacinto River and a railroad trestle, but we were the redneck country hicks to their kids of the affluence.
Man, Friday nights in small town Texas during football season? There really is no other energy or excitement like it.
BBB, Dave Campbell didn’t just recognize one rivalry, he ranked them after an extensive study.
I should have included this story in the links.
I’m the same about Dave’s magazine with my oldest brother. We are always anticipating the arrival of the mag, and will call each other to see if either of us has already purchased it, then we share it after the one who bought it has read it.
I was All-District my junior year, and I was the same way, I couldn’t wait to see my name and/or photo in Dave Campbell before my Senior year. No photo, but my name was there. Good times!
The Longview game had and has a special place among rivalries for Marshall, but wasn’t the only one. When I played, we had a particularly nasty rivalry with Lufkin, so much so, that our team bus always had to be escorted all the way to Nacogdoches after we whipped the Panthers butts. That rivalry is now pretty much gone, as Lufkin and Marshall haven’t played each other since 2000. We also didn’t get along too well with Texarkana. After whipping their butts particularly bad one year, their big stud was looking for my fullback/linebacker brother at a basketball game, and when he couldn’t find him, forced a Marshall kid to give him our home phone number. He called our house and my brother answered the phone, and the guy told him if he ever saw his face he was gonna kick his ass. My brother asked where he was, and told him to wait right there. He got in his Chevy and drove the 72 miles to Texarkana in less than an hour, went into the gym and called the guy out. They walked outside, surrounded by kids from both towns, and my brother busted his jaw before the guy could get his jacket off, and he slid off the hood of a car onto the ground, out cold.
Marshall kids aren’t known for being mean or trouble makers, just country strong kids that don’t take any bull off idiots.
Same here, Robbie, nothing beats high school football in Texas.
I was living on Lake Conroe, and working in Houston, in the mid to late 80’s, and I remember the rivalry with Hunstville was pretty intense at that time.
Hunstville had that Clemens kid at QB, and they were running that high octane offense, piling up the points.
Marshall beat Hunstville in the 88 playoffs, and in the 89 season, Hunstville had won their playoff game on a Saturday afternoon. Marshall didn’t play until that night. The word from the Hunstville game was that their fans were chanting “We Want Marshall” as the clock wound down. Well, they Marshall the next weekend, and left the game in silence, no chanting.(henh)
I have been feeling the old feelings I used to get all week leading up to the Longview game. When I could have gotten a ticket, I didn’t know I would be able to make the two and a half hour drive this Friday. Just as well. So glad Teamline makes high school games available on the innernut.
It’s more than football in small town Texas, though. It’s faith, family, and community. There is no substitute.
It’s this kind of talk that makes euroweenie heads explode. lol!
Henh, don’t encourage me, anon.
Maybe the weenies and their American counterparts would feel better, knowing that Bill Moyers was a cheerleader for the 1951 Mavericks.
I mean a real, dyed in the wool, pom pom shaking cheerleader.
Y’all need to update your histories. Jason Della Rosa of the Herald Democrat researched the Denison/Sherman Battle of the Ax and found news stories that document that this will be the 110th game played since 1901.
Fans have been going at each other for several weeks in anticipation of the game this week. It is not only for the coveted Ax, but it is for the district crown as well.
I would tell you to come and watch two of the states best runningbacks in D. J. Jones and Waymon James, but all tickets are gone except for 300 that will go on sale at 6:15 the night of the game. I expect the line to form early and for those tickets to sell out fast.
There is nothing like Texas high school football on Friday night and these great rivalry games makes it even better.
Verry cool. These are all great rivalries and worthy of all the praise but a quick look at Wikipedia will show you that ther are several older ones. My high school, Baltimore Polytechnic, will play Baltiumore City College (a high school) for the 120th meeting (coninuous) since 1889 this saturday october 8th, 2008. My father coached footbal for Poly for 20 of those years and still holds the best record. George Young Coached against him for City. You probably rememer George Young as the assitant commisioner of the NFL in the 80/90s.
Knock’em down boys.
Stu Lumsden, Baltimore
Texan and Stu, had you read all the links, you would have found that the Marshall-Longview rivalry has been played since about 1880. The 98th meeting is the officially recognized period, as records before then are lost. Besides, I never claimed it was the oldest in the U.S., I don’t know how anyone could actually document that. I use wiki as a source of last resort.
That it is rated as the oldest in the state, and the most heated, if not down right nasty, may be a point of contention for some, but it is fairly well recognized, as such.
This is a Texas blog, so keep in my mind my bias, both for the state, and for my hometown. I lived this rivalry, from the time I was old enough to go to the games on Friday night, until I could play.
In any event, hope you enjoyed the story, and that we all share the same enthusiasm for the wonderful world of high school football.